This is getting to be a bad habit. What excuses can I conjure up this time for my utter reticence on this forum? Time again is at an all time premium. Ah, but should I continue supplying you with the same excuses?
It's late and my creative juices have stopped flowing. The fact is this – this last week I spent a great deal more time on a digital wedding photography forum learning the ins and outs of wedding photography than I did looking for cool content for this site. I can't mention that site's name or the URL. Suffice to say, I have learned more in a week than in a whole semester at college.
Some of you know that I have dove in head first into the digital realm. It's a little overwhelming. Harikrishna, a fellow photog, who posts his comments here has encouraged me to look at capturing images in the RAW format. But even before that crucial step, I have learned now, it's vitally important to know how to set the White Balance for the camera so that one's RAW captures can be easily converted. That's where I am sort of stuck. So, Hari, if you are reading this, holler at me. You know my number.
I am heading to the West coast this coming weekend to photograph a wedding. Yes, all digital. Am I nervous? Hell yeah, I am. If it were film, it would be a cake walk. But pithy comments aside, challenges are meant to make one stronger and I do hope this experience does for me what it has done for countless other photographers; make them better image makers using the tools of today. I don't mind acknowledging the fact that, in some respects, it does feel like I am photographing for the very first time. It is frightening, exciting and certainly exhilarating all at the same time.
The last few weeks of using my Nikon D70s has been very interesting. I have encountered lots of successful moments capturing precious moments in beautiful light. I have also been confounded by a recurring exposure problem when I use my 35mm f/2.0 lens on the new camera. [I understand a lot of this is going to be glossed right over by non-photographers, but bear with me please.] Consecutive exposures produced by my new camera have all had blown-out highlights and that too when I was just messing around in the “P” [or Program] mode. This is the mode that most amateurs will depend on for creating images. I use the “M” [manual] or the “A” [Aperture] modes for most of my image making. The “P” mode provides the user both the shutterspeed and the aperture to create adequately and [most of the time] accurately exposed images. To find that the machine fails in this rather basic function perplexes me. I have to wonder if I have unwittingly hit some button on the machine and it will remain whacked till I reset it to factory specifications.
Ok, I have rambled on enough for one night. I hope to have something more substantial and wholeheartedly interesting to post tomorrow. Thanks for reading!
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Seshu,
I hope your having fun with D70. White balancing pictures is pretty critical in your digital workflow. Here’s one way of working efficiently with the best output. Lets say you are shooting under some weird lights and you have no idea of the color temperature of the light sources. Take a 18% gray card and shoot the first frame with the gray in it.For example, if it is a portriat, ask the person to hold it facing the camera and take a picture. Now forget about white balancing and all that jazz, just shoot the rest. Next, download all your Raw files and open the first image in Adobe Camera Raw(photoshop CS). Use the inkdropper and click on the gray card inside the first picture. Lo and behold, your white balance is set to neutralize any color cast. Now select all the images shot in the same lighting condition, including the first image, and control click>apply camera raw settings of the first image. Thats it. You white balanced
all your shots instantly. Ofcourse, I should add, that sometimes “correct” white balance is not necessarily the “right” white balance.For instance, if you white balance a shot of the evening light, you would be destroying the warm glow. So it depends. In any case, you might want to tweak it a bit from the “correct” color temperature to your taste(same procedure, tweak the first images, select all the images>control click>apply….you know the drill now)
Here’s how one could avoid exposure problems while shooting. Lets say you shoot based on the camera meter(a hand held exposure meter would do wonders too)I highly recommend shooting in the manual mode since you can control the exposure easily up and down). If the picture looks ok on the lcd panel, look at the histogram. As long as your histogram doesnt cross the right side(meaning your highlights arent clipped), your are fine. So if you are shooting in raw, try to expose so that your histogram always sits on the right side. This captures maximum detail in the highlights and shadows, with relatively lesser noise in the shadows(shadows regions are notorious for digital noise ). Thats it. Thats the best you can do in any lighting conditions(unless you use fill-in flash to control the lighting conntrast which is different story). Then you go to Camera Raw and tweak the exposure for the first image till you are satisfied and like the white balancing method, select the rest of the images shot in the same light >apply …..etc etc. Good luck with your shoot.
Seshu,
I hope your having fun with D70. White balancing pictures is pretty critical in your digital workflow. Here’s one way of working efficiently with the best output. Lets say you are shooting under some weird lights and you have no idea of the color temperature of the light sources. Take a 18% gray card and shoot the first frame with the gray in it.For example, if it is a portriat, ask the person to hold it facing the camera and take a picture. Now forget about white balancing and all that jazz, just shoot the rest. Next, download all your Raw files and open the first image in Adobe Camera Raw(photoshop CS). Use the inkdropper and click on the gray card inside the first picture. Lo and behold, your white balance is set to neutralize any color cast. Now select all the images shot in the same lighting condition, including the first image, and control click>apply camera raw settings of the first image. Thats it. You white balanced
all your shots instantly. Ofcourse, I should add, that sometimes “correct” white balance is not necessarily the “right” white balance.For instance, if you white balance a shot of the evening light, you would be destroying the warm glow. So it depends. In any case, you might want to tweak it a bit from the “correct” color temperature to your taste(same procedure, tweak the first images, select all the images>control click>apply….you know the drill now)
Here’s how one could avoid exposure problems while shooting. Lets say you shoot based on the camera meter(a hand held exposure meter would do wonders too)I highly recommend shooting in the manual mode since you can control the exposure easily up and down). If the picture looks ok on the lcd panel, look at the histogram. As long as your histogram doesnt cross the right side(meaning your highlights arent clipped), your are fine. So if you are shooting in raw, try to expose so that your histogram always sits on the right side. This captures maximum detail in the highlights and shadows, with relatively lesser noise in the shadows(shadows regions are notorious for digital noise ). Thats it. Thats the best you can do in any lighting conditions(unless you use fill-in flash to control the lighting conntrast which is different story). Then you go to Camera Raw and tweak the exposure for the first image till you are satisfied and like the white balancing method, select the rest of the images shot in the same light >apply …..etc etc. Good luck with your shoot.